


An Aesthetic Thing

by UbiquitousMixie



Category: The Closer
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 18:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2661437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UbiquitousMixie/pseuds/UbiquitousMixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Looking at Sharon Raydor is just...an aesthetic thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Aesthetic Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I’m a bit obsessed with the way that Brenda and Sharon stare at each other, and this is just a little something I imagined taking place around the time of “Necessary Evil.” Enjoy! Comments are love!

Brenda drums her fingers along the top of her desk, tapping out the rhythm to a random song she’s sure she’s never heard before. She looks at the wall, blank and perhaps in need of a fresh coat of paint. She looks at the floor, in need of a good sweeping. She looks at her nails, at the jagged hangnail on her index finger, at the loose string on the sleeve of her sweater. She looks everywhere except at where her mind screams for her eyes to look. 

She bites her lip and sighs, slumping back against the leather of her chair as she closes her eyes and swivels away from the windowed walls of her office toward the windows overlooking the city she calls home. Her nostrils flare with each exhale and she feels so tightly wound that she might snap. 

_Get a grip,_ she tells herself. 

She hears the ghost of a voice in the Murder Room, faint and almost imperceptible through the closed door of her office. Had it been anyone else, she may not have heard it at all. 

Except that it isn’t someone else. 

It’s her. 

It’s Raydor. 

Without opening her eyes, Brenda’s breath hitches. She’s glad she’s facing away from the door because she can feel the heat in her cheeks spreading down her throat. 

She snaps her eyes open. She’s being ridiculous. She cannot hide away in her office. The more she tries to deny herself what she clearly needs, the crazier she’s bound to become. How long will it be before someone recognizes it written across her face? 

What she needs is to be able to look at Sharon Raydor without her desire betraying her features completely. 

It had started innocently enough; there had been no harm in stealing glances at Sharon once she had acknowledged how attractive she found the other woman. It had been...an aesthetic thing. That’s why people went to art museums, wasn’t it? To look at beautiful things and appreciate them and to be transported by that beauty? Looking at Raydor had been no different to looking at the Mona Lisa, though that imperceptible smile had nothing on the captain’s if Brenda had anything to say about it. 

In the beginning, she had convinced herself that this was okay. That it was normal. That looking at Sharon Raydor didn’t mean anything more than simply appreciating a beautiful woman. So what did it matter that she’d never done it before, or that she’s never given a hoot for art? 

But quickly enough those little appreciative glances had turned into stares, and that staring had burned the image of Sharon Raydor into her eyelids so that she was there, ever present, even when Brenda closed her eyes. Even now, Brenda can see Sharon as plainly as if she were looking right at her. 

(Even so, recalling her image is not nearly enough to satisfy the need to actually _see_ her.) 

She bites her lip. All she wants is to look. Her skin prickles as she denies herself just one little glance, as if she’s a heroin addict within arm’s reach of a fix. She worries her lip between her teeth and counts to ten. 

It’s just a matter of time before she’s going to give herself permission to do what she _needs_ , and she doesn’t see the point in driving herself crazy anymore -- not when she’s alone in her office with the blinds partly drawn. Here, in the privacy of her office, she can look her fill. She can look as much as she wants and if anyone sees her, they’ll just think she’s staring off into space or thinking about the next case or…

She spins slowly, careful not to appear _too_ desperate, even to herself. When her eyes focus on the room beyond her office and on the woman that’s standing here, her heart rate quickens to an alarming pace. Only -- it’s strange, because while her heart races, that desperation begins to subside because she’s finally able to look at her, and she feels almost...at peace. 

Sharon’s hair is partly swept back today, just enough to leave her face unobstructed from view. Brenda emits a little gasp as she takes in the lines of her face, the curve of her lips, the green of her eyes behind her glasses. She follows the pale column of her throat and the dip of her collarbones and the hem of her high-cut blouse, biting back a frown at how covered the woman is today. Yesterday she wore something low cut that offered the barest glimpse of the valley between her breasts, and Brenda had nearly whimpered aloud in front of half her team. Now, she can emit whatever little sounds she wants, because there’s no one else to hear. 

Sharon moves around the Murder Room, making the rounds from desk to desk as she monitors the work being done. Brenda had thought she’d hate being micromanaged by Raydor, but the leak in her division has made it possible for Brenda to look and look and look at Sharon to her heart’s content without having to come up with silly excuses to go to IA. 

(When she had first admitted this attraction to herself, she had gone to that oft-avoided floor and had invented hollow reasons to see her, just so she could have two minutes and thirty seconds of seeing Raydor before she was expected to go about her business for days or weeks. It had been torture. Then, later, there was one time when Raydor was out sick, and Brenda hadn’t gotten to look at her for three whole days, and she had felt like she was drowning.)

Her eyes follow the shape of Sharon’s body as she moves around the room, mesmerized by the curves of her hips and the swell of her ass in her finely tailored black pants. She would frown at the fact that Sharon’s not wearing a skirt, but those pants make her ass look incredible. 

She feels heat, now, in places that aren’t just her face. A tell-tale tingle begins in her belly and she shifts, pressing her thighs together as if to quiet the answering throb. Sharon bends slightly at the waist, and Brenda has to bite her lip to keep from groaning aloud. 

(She’s really going to have to think about what this means, that this isn’t just an aesthetic thing anymore.) 

To Brenda’s horror, Sharon flips her hair over her shoulder, turning her head to look toward Brenda’s office. Their eyes meet and Brenda feels her cheeks redden again as the captain’s lips quirk into a smile. 

Brenda smiles back. 

Their eyes remain connected for several long beats before Sharon’s attention is called elsewhere. It’s not until Sharon breaks the connection that Brenda realizes she has been holding her breath. 

She was, for all intents and purposes, caught in the act of staring at her, but that’s not going to stop her from looking now that Raydor has turned away. 

Her stomach flutters. This act of looking is the highlight of each day. 

This is no longer just an aesthetic thing. 

\---


End file.
